Dataset Information

Characterization of residential pesticide use and chemical formulations through self-report and household inventory: the Northern California Childhood Leukemia study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Home and garden pesticide use has been linked to cancer and other health outcomes in numerous epidemiological studies. Exposure has generally been self-reported, so the assessment is potentially limited by recall bias and lack of information on specific chemicals.

Objectives

As part of an integrated assessment of residential pesticide exposure, we identified active ingredients and described patterns of storage and use.

Methods

During a home interview of 500 residentially stable households enrolled in the Northern California Childhood Leukemia Study during 2001-2006, trained interviewers inventoried residential pesticide products and queried participants about their storage and use. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency registration numbers, recorded from pesticide product labels, and pesticide chemical codes were matched to public databases to obtain information on active ingredients and chemical class. Poisson regression was used to identify independent predictors of pesticide storage. Analyses were restricted to 259 participating control households.

Results

Ninety-five percent (246 of 259) of the control households stored at least one pesticide product (median, 4). Indicators of higher sociodemographic status predicted more products in storage. We identified the most common characteristics: storage areas (garage, 40%; kitchen, 20%), pests treated (ants, 33%; weeds, 20%), pesticide types (insecticides, 46%; herbicides, 24%), chemical classes (pyrethroids, 77%; botanicals, 50%), active ingredients (pyrethrins, 43%) and synergists (piperonyl butoxide, 42%). Products could contain multiple active ingredients.

Conclusions

Our data on specific active ingredients and patterns of storage and use will inform future etiologic analyses of residential pesticide exposures from self-reported data, particularly among households with young children.

SUBMITTER: Guha N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3569677 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Characterization of residential pesticide use and chemical formulations through self-report and household inventory: the Northern California Childhood Leukemia study.

Guha Neela N Ward Mary H MH Gunier Robert R Colt Joanne S JS Lea C Suzanne CS Buffler Patricia A PA Metayer Catherine C

Environmental health perspectives 20121024 2

<h4>Background</h4>Home and garden pesticide use has been linked to cancer and other health outcomes in numerous epidemiological studies. Exposure has generally been self-reported, so the assessment is potentially limited by recall bias and lack of information on specific chemicals.<h4>Objectives</h4>As part of an integrated assessment of residential pesticide exposure, we identified active ingredients and described patterns of storage and use.<h4>Methods</h4>During a home interview of 500 resid ...[more]

PMID: 23110983

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Project description:Studies of environmental exposures and childhood cancers that rely on records often only use maternal address at birth or address at cancer diagnosis to assess exposures in early childhood, possibly leading to exposure misclassification and questionable validity due to residential mobility during early childhood. Our objective was to assess patterns and identify factors that may predict residential mobility in early childhood, and examine the impact of mobility on early childhood exposure assessment for agriculturally applied pesticides and childhood cancers in California. We obtained the addresses at diagnosis of all childhood cancer cases born in 1998-2011 and diagnosed at 0-5 years of age (n = 6478) from the California Cancer Registry (CCR), and their birth addresses from linked birth certificates. Controls were randomly selected from California birth records and frequency matched (20:1) to all cases by year of birth. We obtained residential histories from a public-record database LexisNexis for both case (n = 3877 with age at diagnosis 1-5 years) and control (n = 99,262) families. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the socio-demographic factors in relation to residential mobility in early childhood. We employed a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based system to estimate children's first year of life exposures to agriculturally applied pesticides based on birth vs diagnosis address or residential histories based upon Lexis-Nexis Public Records and assessed agreement between exposure measures using Spearman correlations and kappa statistics. Over 20% of case and control children moved in their first year of life, and 55% of children with cancer moved between birth and diagnosis. Older age at diagnosis, younger maternal age, lower maternal education, not having a Hispanic ethnic background, use of public health insurance, and non-metropolitan residence at birth were predictors of higher residential mobility. There was moderate to strong correlation (Spearman correlation = 0.76-0.83) and good agreement (kappa = 0.75-0.81) between the first year of life exposure estimates for agricultural pesticides applied within 2 km of a residence relying on an address at birth or at diagnosis or LexisNexis addresses; this did not differ by outcome status, but agreement decreased with decreasing buffer size, and increasing distance moved or age at diagnosis. These findings suggest that residential addresses collected at one point in time may represent residential history in early childhood to a reasonable extent; nevertheless, they exposure misclassification in the first year of life remains an issue. Also, the highest proportion of women not captured by LexisNexis were Hispanic women born in Mexico and those living in the lowest SES neighborhoods, i.e. possibly those with the higher environmental exposures, as well as younger women and those with less than high school education. Though LexisNexis only captures a sub-population, its data may be useful for augmenting address information and assessing the extent of exposure misclassification when estimating environmental exposures in large record linkage studies. Future research should investigate how to correct for exposure misclassification introduced by residential mobility that is not being captured by records.

Project description:BackgroundEnvironmental health research involving community participation has increased substantially since the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) environmental justice and community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships began in the mid-1990s. The goals of these partnerships are to inform and empower better decisions about exposures, foster trust, and generate scientific knowledge to reduce environmental health disparities in low-income, minority communities. Peer-reviewed publication and clinical health outcomes alone are inadequate criteria to judge the success of projects in meeting these goals; therefore, new strategies for evaluating success are needed.ObjectivesWe reviewed the methods used to evaluate our project, "Linking Breast Cancer Advocacy and Environmental Justice," to help identify successful CBPR methods and to assist other teams in documenting effectiveness. Although our project precedes the development of the NIEHS Evaluation Metrics Manual, a schema to evaluate the success of projects funded through the Partnerships in Environmental Public Health (PEPH), our work reported here illustrates the record keeping and self-reflection anticipated in NIEHS's PEPH.DiscussionEvaluation strategies should assess how CBPR partnerships meet the goals of all partners. Our partnership, which included two strong community-based organizations, produced a team that helped all partners gain organizational capacity. Environmental sampling in homes and reporting the results of that effort had community education and constituency-building benefits. Scientific results contributed to a court decision that required cumulative impact assessment for an oil refinery and to new policies for chemicals used in consumer products. All partners leveraged additional funding to extend their work.ConclusionsAn appropriate evaluation strategy can demonstrate how CBPR projects can advance science, support community empowerment, increase environmental health literacy, and generate individual and policy action to protect health.

Dataset Information

Characterization of residential pesticide use and chemical formulations through self-report and household inventory: the Northern California Childhood Leukemia study.

Background

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Characterization of residential pesticide use and chemical formulations through self-report and household inventory: the Northern California Childhood Leukemia study.

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